Pages

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Special Delivery

If you read this blog regularly, you'll know that there are a few subjects I just can't stop writing about (I'm looking at you, cupcakes. And you too, British period dramas). It seems that Persephone Books has found its way onto that list.

For a couple of weeks last month, they were running a "Fortnight in September" promotion. If you ordered three books, you got a free copy of The Fortnight in September. It was too tempting for me to pass up, and last week I was excited to come home and find my package waiting for me. At first I was a bit surprised to discover that the books were jacketed paperbacks and not cloth editions, but any whiff of disappointment evaporated when I saw their beautiful endpapers and coordinating bookmarks.

The first one I chose to dive into was Every Eye by Isobel English. Of the few Persephone novels I've read so far, this is the first one that I can truly say I loved. The story weaves the present with the past for Hattie, a woman traveling with her husband to Ibiza for a newlywed vacation and looking back on her former life in London, where she spent her teenage years living in the shadow of a manipulative aunt. I found Hattie to be a moving and likable narrator. Her thoughts and emotions lead the way back and forth between the two storylines, which ultimately come together in the last lines of the book for a surprise ending that was unexpected and amazing.